


Weavers at the loom

by nohomies (kameo_chan)



Category: Peacemaker Kurogane
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Consensual Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/nohomies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They weren't made for each other, so instead they made themselves fit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weavers at the loom

Souji loses his virginity at seventeen. Hijikata's breath is hot and harsh in his ear; the weight of him heavily draped across Souji’s sweat-slicked back and the steady burn of penetration still hasn't faded, but there's something underlying it, a sort of almost-pleasure.

They're in one of the spare rooms of the sprawling farmhouse, and Souji knows that they might get caught at any moment. But Hijikata's hands are as steady on his hips as they are on his sword and for now, all Souji wants is the feeling of Hijikata inside of him and around him and the wonderful feeling of being wanted more than anything else in the world.

\---

Hijikata makes the worst mistake of his life when he's twenty-five. He's in a spare room of the farmhouse that hosts the Shieikan, on his knees with his yukata hanging open and a boy who almost looks like a girl writhing on the floor before him. Hijikata knows that this is asking for trouble, but he can't stop himself, not with the way Souji gasps his name and shifts against him. The promise of what is happening now has lain thick between them for years, but somehow, he still can't manage to shake the feeling that this will only make things worse.

\---

They are not found out that day, or on the many other occasions that follow. And though Hijikata's feeling of foreboding only grows worse with the years, the prospect of a life without Souji troubles him far more. They are found out eventually though, by a red-headed boy with aspirations of being a great swordsman. Hijikata has a fit of apoplexy and screams at Tetsu to pick his jaw up from the floor and at least slide the door shut – does that simpleton have no sense of decency at all?! All Souji can do is laugh and shrug and say that it was bound to happen sooner or later.

\---

Nothing changes between them, nor between those they call friends and allies, save that what used to be speculative looks have now become knowing glances that have taken on an air of unwarranted smugness. And if Hijikata-san seems extra grumpy some days, well, it goes without saying that sometimes, even Vice-Commanders can get the cold shoulder when they set their idiotic pages the task of cleaning the pig sty without dinner as punishment for indiscretion. Yamanami-san seems to possess the most compassion in times like these, even though he doesn't dare invite Hijikata to commiserate the fickle ways of love with him.

Instead, Sannan pushes his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose and tries not to breathe too loudly or move too fast whenever Hijikata stalks around the Shinsengumi compound like an angry cat. These are the days when not even Sanosuke or Shinpachi will try their luck, and it’s only after Tatsu brews him a strong cup of tea – liberally fortified with a dash of the French brandy that Ryoma-san had snuck into the accounting room with one hot summer afternoon – that Hijikata manages to relax.

\---

Later, after Ayumu has seen to the cooking and most of the men are asleep in the communal sleeping hall, Souji invariably finds him in his room, the fine-tipped brush in his hand poised aimlessly over a blank sheet of parchment.

"I’m sorry," Souji whispers as he tiptoes inside, loosening the obi of his yukata and reaching slim hands underneath the cotton to slide it off his shoulders.

"It doesn’t matter," Hijikata growls, dropping the brush and splattering ink all over the clean floor, reaching for Souji.

And Souji is soft kisses and whispered apologies in the dark then, just as Hijikata is roaming hands and unspoken promises to guard and protect. It is a dance, a technique they have crafted and perfected between the two of them over the course of long years and dreadful hardships and deceptive lulls between battle and bloodshed.

\---

"I’m yours," Souji says afterwards, when they’re naked and spent and sprawling all over the tatami in a tangle of limbs and loose hair. And Hijikata takes his hand, presses it to his mouth.

"You always have been," he says against the flutter-pulse of Souji's wrist. "And you always will be." It isn't love. Love is a frail boy who spent half his years crying and the other half smiling. Love is dreaming of impossible ideals with the foolish optimism of youth. Love is the back room of a farmhouse and the hot, bright spark behind closed eyes when the world narrows down to that one moment where Souji chokes out a cry and comes, warm and sticky over his hand.

It isn't love, because love is fleeting and skittish, so very unlike either of them. And in the last moments before sleep takes him, Hijikata reflects that perhaps, for the two of them, not having an adequate word to describe what they mean to each other is all they could have ever hoped for.


End file.
